Page 55 of The Midnight Knock

With a great, heaving twitch that overwhelmed her entire body, Fernanda fell to her knees. She raised a hand to grab at the pen. She missed. Tried again. Couldn’t close her hand. Fernanda’s mind and her fingers seemed to have separated, never to return. The woman made a noise in her throat, a delayed grunt of shock or pain. A brilliant thread of blood curled from the corner of her eye and into her open mouth. The arc of the blood’s course reminded Kyla, of all things, of the curve of the crack in her bathroom mirror.

Fernanda fell, face-first, to the floor. The pen dug deeper with another wet squelch.

Fernanda went still.

Kyla was too horrified to even scream.

Jack Allen turned again toward the walnut door in the back of the office. He turned the brass key. He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Here we go again.”

Finally, one of the twins spoke. It was Tabitha.

She whispered, “Run.”

Kyla regained the use of her feet as the walnut door eased open. As a great towering shape loomed up out of the darkness inside. As a piercingSHRIEKechoed off the walls of the office.

Kyla didn’t realize she’d dropped her gun until she was outside, in the cold, and looked over her shoulder in time to see Tabitha’s head crash against the narrow front window with a damp thud. Thomas screamed. Screamed.

Stopped.

And Jack Allen called after Kyla, all courtesy. “See you shortly, Miss Hewitt.”

ETHAN

He awoke on the floor of his room.

For a moment, mercy: Ethan had no idea why his head hurt, why he was on the carpet, why Hunter was heaving the mattress off their bed. For a moment, Ethan wasn’t afraid of Hunter. No: on the contrary, he was afraidforHunter. Hunter’s chest was heaving, the air thick and heavy on its way out of his lungs. The man was sweaty, pale, clearly exhausted. Hunter had overexerted himself somehow, and his illness was punishing him for it.

Ethan realized, all over again, just how sick Hunter was.

And then Ethan remembered what happened in the office.

He went scrambling backward across the floor, away from Hunter, tried to stand.

“Ethan!”

Hunter dropped the mattress and leapt across the room, wrapping a hand around Ethan’s ankle. Ethan kicked him with the other foot. Hunter grabbed it too.

“Let go of me!” Ethan shouted. “Get away!”

“Ethan, please, listen—”

Ethan fought to pull himself free. “Whoareyou?”

“Listen. Please.” Hunter didn’t let go. “There isn’t much time. That man, the man in the suit—he’s dangerous. He’s the most dangerous man you will ever meet.”

That made Ethan pause. “How do you know that?”

“Because I’ve met him before.” Hunter swallowed. “I’d tell you the full story if we had time, I would, but we don’t. Between Jack Allen and those things in the desert, we’re dead if you don’t do exactly what I say.”

Ethan’s head was still swimming from the blow Hunter had struck in the office. There was only one thing he knew for sure. Something he’d long suspected. Maybe even known and refused to see.

Now, finally, he could admit it.

“You’re a monster.”

“Iwasa monster, Ethan. I was the worst man a man could be.” Hunter still didn’t let go of Ethan’s ankles, but his grip was weakening. Those same two tears Ethan had seen earlier stood, again, in the corners of Hunter’s eyes. “I was a monster. And then I met you.”

“You met me six weeks ago. People don’t change in six weeks.”